A jury awarded $110,000 plus undisclosed punitive damages to an Adelanto man shot by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies in a case of mistaken identity, the man’s attorney said Friday.

The jury, composed of six women and two men, returned their verdict Thursday in U.S. District Court in Riverside after deliberating two days, said Dale K. Galipo, the attorney for the plaintiff, Keivon Young.

According to the verdict form, the jury found that deputies Nicholas Tollefson and Justin Musella used excessive and unreasonable force, were negligent, and that their conduct was “malicious, oppressive or in reckless disregard” for Young’s rights.

Young, now 21, was 18 years old when he was shot by the two deputies outside his home in the 11600 block of La Paz Street about 9 p.m. Jan. 29, 2014. The deputies mistook Young for Robert Pope, a murder suspect they had been looking for during a sting operation.

Pope was subsequently arrested and now awaits trial for the fatal shooting of Ernie Sanders and the wounding of Summer Mattes in Apple Valley on Jan. 28, 2014. Pope’s trial is scheduled for Feb. 6.

According to a Sept. 30, 2015, report by the District Attorney’s Office concluding the shooting of Young was justified, Tollefson and Musella were part of a five-man team surveilling Young’s home when they spotted him lurking around neighboring homes, holding something in his hands wrapped in cloth, when they decided to confront him.

Musella told investigators Young was pulling something with a shiny reflection from his waistband as Young approached Musella and Tollefson. He believed Young was pulling a gun. That’s when Musella, fearing for his life, shot Young three times, then twice more when Young was on the ground because Young was still trying to pull something from his waistband. Tollefson shot Young three times, then four more times while Young was on the ground after seeing a white object in Young’s waistband he believed was a weapon.

Young had pulled two butcher knives from his waistband during the incident, according to the District Attorney’s report.

“We were determined to fight this case. We believe our deputies acted appropriately based on the circumstances they were presented with,” Sheriff John McMahon said in a statement Friday. “The verdict by the jury came back differently. We will analyze the decision after being briefed by our attorneys.”

Galipo said the jury took issue with the fact Young was not actually holding the knives when confronted by the deputies, and felt the deputies, who were not in uniform and were driving unmarked vehicles because they were working undercover, could have done a better job of identifying themselves and giving Young enough time to comply.

He said Young had grabbed the two knives from the kitchen to protect himself and his friends because several people had arrived at the home prior to the shooting and got into a heated argument with Young’s friends inside the garage, then left.

“Young, who’s an 18-year-old guy at the time, gets scared and goes in the kitchen and grabs two kitchen knives and puts them in his waistband, which was a stupid thing to do and which he admitted to on the witness stand,” Galipo said. “The cops are watching him sneaking up toward the house, hiding in the bushes, then they see him reaching into his waistband, putting stuff in, taking stuff out, and they thought maybe he was there to attack people in the garage.”

Young survived the shooting and was charged with two felony counts of resisting a peace officer, one felony count of knife possession and one misdemeanor count of resisting arrest. In a plea agreement in June 2014, Young pleaded guilty to the knife possession charge and to one misdemeanor count of resisting a peace officer. The other two charges were dismissed.

Joe Nelson is an award-winning investigative reporter who has worked for The Sun since November 1999. He started as a crime reporter and went on to cover a variety of beats including courts and the cities of Colton, Highland and Grand Terrace. He has covered San Bernardino County since 2009. Nelson is a graduate of California State University Fullerton. In 2014, he completed a fellowship at Loyola Law School's Journalist Law School program.